


Anomaly

by chasu



Category: Magic Kaito
Genre: Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Canonical Character Death, Childhood, F/M, Growing Up, Multi, Pre-Relationship, Psychic Bond, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Where in the World is Hakuba Saguru?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-07
Updated: 2015-01-17
Packaged: 2018-03-06 14:39:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,848
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3137984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chasu/pseuds/chasu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kaito catches a glint of something dark, dark lines on his skin when he gives her the flower, but he doesn't look away from her face.<br/>"I'm Kuroba Kaito," he says, with a smile. Suddenly, her eyes go very wide. "It's nice to meet you."</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The First

   The writing on Kuroba Kaito's right wrist is as normal as can be, really. A female name, to the mild relief of his parents. A nice name, _Nakamori Aoko_ , and a healthy colour. It's set in like a scar; like cuts forgotten, indented and not raised in a white line like some he's seen.

The only problem is the _other_ one.

   Because there are two, and sometimes Kaito is treated to a tittering recount of his toddler years by his mother, when his marks began to develop on both wrists rather than just one. They had done some research, she tells him, at the library, but still Kaito's parents avoid his questions of _why, why, why_  .

   At far too young an age, he is gifted a watch by his father to cover the one on the left. It's the one with the forename that Kaito doesn't know how to read, and it's no real loss to him. Like everything from his father, he treasures the watch. When he starts school, he takes to wrapping his left wrist up with a bandage to shield it from prying eyes during gym class.

   In the first grade, he doesn't meet anyone else with two markings.

   That doesn't stop him from engaging in the conversations that spring up sometimes, when all the little girls shriek and giggle together about meeting _Ryo_ or _Natsu_ , some still struggling through the pronunciation, some listing off every potential reading their parents have given them, some with names in languages they can't read or identify; and the boys, declaring that, soulmate or no soulmate, _Akane_ or _Rikako_  is probably just as gross as all the other girls, anyway.

   Kaito gleefully agrees with them. "I  _never_  want to kiss _Aoko_!" he declares, in the most disgusted voice he can muster, throwing his hands up so everyone can see the name on his visible wrist. He's met with laughter, and a few loud kissy-faces in his direction, which he returns while the girls are discussing their dream weddings with people they don't know, and arguing over the pronunciation of _Dmitri_.

   One child even takes it upon herself to argue that Nagisa  _is_  a boy's name, it's just  _unusual._  Nobody believes her, but it's a valiant effort.

   That has Kaito's fingers running absently over the strap of his watch.

 

   Kaito thinks it must be so easy for his parents. They have each other's names in neat script, standing out stark against their skin from proximity. He knows, from some unidentifiable source, because he has _always_  known, that the names will grow clearer the closer he gets to this soulmate - these _soulmates_  - of his. Both of his markings are pretty clear, he thinks. Not as clear as his parents', but far more than some, like the little girl down the street, whose indent of _Pascal_  is almost unreadable.

   In the second grade, he watches an upperclassman at his school burst into tears when she finds her name on the skin of a transfer student. He watches his father's name on his mother's wrist grow paler and darker again as he tours the country. He watches, stunned and aching with disappointment, as _Hakuba-something_  fades and fades one day while he's in the bath, like blood being drained from him, and the soft pink scar becomes almost the colour of his skin.

   He bursts into the dining room half-naked, where his mother is rearranging flowers on the table, and shoves his hand in front of her face. "Did she die?" he demands, desperate, his voice unreasonably high. "What happened to her?"

   His mother sits him down, patient as can be, and examines the markings, brushing her thumb over them again and again. "She's fine," she says, in that voice she uses when Kaito has scraped his knee or bumped his head and needs reassurance that the world isn't ending, "She's just travelling, like your daddy."

   She ruffles his hair, the signal that it's time for him to smile and stop panicking and mourning for someone he's never even met.

 

   Kaito pulls a rose from within his sleeve, and holds it out to the sad little girl beside him. She's waiting for her dad, she says; scared and anxious to the side of a crowded street, and Kaito has done this routine for so many other children before. They cry, and he produces a balloon animal, or a bouquet of carnations. Someone falls on the playground and Kaito says, "Pick a card, any card," working in sync with his teachers so that by the time the child looks down, their wound is cleaned and bandaged and it's almost like it never happened at all.

   Kaito has his sleeves rolled to the elbows, left hand firmly in his pocket. He catches a glint of something dark, dark lines on his skin when he gives her the flower, but doesn't look away from her face. "I'm Kuroba Kaito," he says, with a smile. Suddenly, her eyes go very wide. "It's nice to meet you."   


  
  The two of them compare markings in the park the next afternoon, both having agreed on the spot not to breathe a word to their families or anyone else. Her name on his wrist goes pale as she drives away in her father's car, back to the colour it always has been. Kaito supposes it must be the same for her.

   When they meet again, it's after school and Aoko has arrived when Kaito gets there. She's dumped her bag at the base of the swings, and she's wearing her uniform - he recognises it as belonging to an elementary school nearby. She isn't swinging, just sitting.

   "So," she says, when he's seated himself on the swing next to hers, and rolls down her sleeve to show his name on her left wrist, unmistakable. "It's you."

   "It's you," he repeats, giving his best reassuring smile when he realises how shy she looks. She's very pretty, he thinks. Kind of short for her age, and her hair is messy, unruly the way his has been since he was born.

   Maybe it will give them something to talk about, another time.

   They fall into silence. Aoko's feet barely touch the ground, and she has to strain to reach in order to twist herself around and around in her seat, the chain wrapping around itself, creaking. She lets go and it sends her twirling, the swingset protesting loudly under the strain. She kicks him, a little, but Kaito doesn't say anything. She does it again, but she doesn't kick him this time.

   She clanks back into place, and glances over at him again. "Do you think we should kiss?"

   Kaito blinks, feels himself blushing. "Now?"

   Aoko blushes back. She swings her legs, not gaining any momentum, just fidgeting. "Yeah."

   Kaito remembers what he always said. _"I will never never never never ever kiss--"_

   "Not yet." He rests the side of his head on the chain and looks sideways at her. "Not until you tell me if you watch Yaiba or not."

 

   It's only months later when Kaito and his mother are nestled in the booth of a little restaurant not far from their home, a treat for the end of term. She's wearing jewellery, so many pretty bracelets and a locket necklace, but Kaito still notices when she reaches for her drink. Something is missing.

   He stills her hand, feels his own hand shaking.

   She seems to know before he tells her.

 

   Kaito spends almost the entire summer at Aoko's house, which would be so much more exciting under any other circumstance. Whenever Kaito sees his mother, her eyes are rimmed-red with bruised-purple circles beneath, and some mornings Kaito wakes up to find himself looking the same way.

   In some strange way, he wishes he could dedicate every moment to mourning. Sometimes he catches himself happily singing along with Aoko's radio, or laughing hysterically when she tickles him, and wonders just what is _wrong_  with him. Other times, he spends the whole night sobbing in his futon on Aoko's bedroom floor, underneath the blankets, because he doesn't have to wear his poker face when nobody can see him.

   He convinces himself that Aoko doesn't know, even though she always attempts to bring him breakfast in bed the morning after those nights. Sometimes, he swears he can hear her crying with him. But it's just a coincidence, he thinks, resolutely.

   "I could live with you forever," he says one morning, munching on his burnt toast.

   She grins and sticks out her tongue. "Try telling that to my dad."   

   And life goes on.

 

 

   It has to be admitted that Kaito and Aoko talk a _lot_. They talk about all sorts of things. They talk about television programs and books and how much they either love or hate their respective teachers, depending how the day went. They talk about magic tricks (Kaito) and animals (mostly Aoko) and chess strategies (a strange mutual phase that lasts most of the third grade) - and then, when the craze hits, they talk about Pokemon, _constantly_.

   What they don't talk about is soulmates.

   Kaito supposes that's the thing about meeting your soulmate when you're seven. There isn't much to say about it. Aoko isn't his _girlfriend_ , they aren't planning a _wedding_ \- she's just a friend who happens to have his name written on her, and vice versa. Occasionally, in quiet moments, he'll rub his fingertips over the kanji on her left wrist and wonder.

   Her _left_  wrist.

   Every soulmate mark Kaito has ever seen has been on the right. He has always thought that Aoko's name being on _his_ right means that she is his 'real' soulmate, whereas Hakuba, still faded and pale, is not. So he hides that second name from her, the way he always has.

   It feels like cheating. Like an assurance that Aoko will leave, or die, and Kaito will move on. The way he hopes his mother will never move on from his father, he will move on with that secondary soulmate, the faraway Hakuba-

   The realisation is like those times he had curiously dipped his finger in hot candlewax - hot and prickly, a tension where he knew it would sting later, but he didn't quite know when.  

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this verse, the soulmate markings only apply to people who are soulmates /and/ destined to be lovers, otherwise it would get a little out of hand. ^^


	2. The Second

   Aoko wears a bracelet on her right wrist; a gift from her mother. Eight pretty, azure-glass jewels, banded with twisting silver. Since Kaito met her, she's worn it almost every day - but other days, her skin is bare and blank and empty but for a dull blue vein.

   Predictably, she wears it on their first day of middle school. Half the girls in the class compliment her on it the moment she walks in the door, which makes her smile.

   At the beginning of their first class, Kaito watches from his desk as she brings a tupperware box of cookies to the teacher's desk, and the teacher make an offhand comment how strange it is that her mark is on the wrong wrist. She hasn't yet noticed that the name also belongs to someone sitting not ten feet away from here, even though the mark is at it's almost-darkest, but she will, soon.  

   "It's just a birth defect," Aoko says, cheerily, but Kaito doesn't miss the way she glances at him just before she does.

 

   Somehow, it takes an entire day before anyone notices. 

   It's break, Kaito standing on his desk and pulling knotted strings of coloured scarves from his sleeve, grinning among a crowd of titillated classmates. The scarves are pooling at his feet when one of Aoko's new friends barges into the room, almost taking the door of it's hinges, and she's dragging Aoko behind her, coming to a firm stop in front of Kaito's desk just as he raises his hands above his head and pulls out the end of the last scarf. With it comes an explosion of confetti and cheers from around the class, and Kaito bows and hops off the desk just as Aoko's bare arm is thrust in front of his face.

   He finds himself looking at his own name, black as ink.

   Aoko's friend looks oddly furious. Severe, with her tight ponytail and her unpainted fingernails leaving crescent marks on Aoko's skin where she's holding on too tightly.

   "You're meant to be together," she demands.

   Kaito and Aoko share a blank look. This does nothing to pacify her, and now people are beginning to stare - or rather, continuing to stare. By design, the confetti was hard to ignore.

   "So?" The friend relinquishes Aoko and puts her hands on her hips, curled into fists, and gives Kaito one of the worst death-glares he's ever encountered from a preteen with bits of coloured paper in her hair. "Kuroba, ask her _out_!"

   There's a gasp from around the room, and Kaito is almost too busy damning his own ability to enrapture his audience to notice the way Aoko is bright red and staring at the ground as though waiting for it to swallow her whole - Kaito feels the prickling embarrassment up his spine, not his own, cringing under the stares, feeling he has never naturally known.

 

   Anxiety creeps up on him while he's in the school library one sticky summer afternoon. He sits with his legs crossed, on the floor of the mystery section, languidly rearranging the books into their correct order. He hasn't quite read them all, but he's torn through enough that it's getting difficult to find the ones he hasn't.

   There have been a few accidental re-readings.

   He needs to get a hobby.

   It's lunchtime, and Aoko is sitting at a nearby table, with a group of her friends. Which is another thing he needs to get: maybe then, he wouldn't be here, distracting himself while Aoko and her posse of girls slave over projects Kaito finished weeks ago, with his infinite free time.

   And then it starts. Cold in his chest and tight in his stomach, like a watered-down version of a genuine emotion. He begins to fidget.

   He looks up to find Aoko dumping all of her textbooks and notepads and stationary unceremoniously into her bag, swinging the strap over her shoulder without buckling the top closed. She's in the middle of some kind of frantic whisperconversation and doesn't even notice when he gets up and comes closer, stopping at the end of their table.

   "--be back in time?" Keiko asks, concerned, standing up herself in an attempt to help fasten Aoko's bag while Aoko herself fusses with her school shoes, struggling to get them off in a hurry.

   "I think so." Aoko doesn't sound sure at all. Slippers finally discarded and bag no longer flapping around like an open mouth, she stands awkwardly with her hands tucked into her underarms, like she's cold despite the hair sticking to her damp forehead. "I think so, um, I-" She glances around one last time, sees Kaito, and pales, and turns to leave. "I'll be right back," she announces to nobody in particular.

   Kaito is the only one who follows her. He hovers while she puts her outdoor shoes on at her locker, leaning against the one next to it. "Where are you going?"

   "Drugstore." She puts her coat on. The same coat that's been sitting in her locker for a month, relegated to storage throughout the dry and humid summer they've been having. "Emergency."

   His sympathy isn't at all fake. "Period emergency?"

   Without even throwing him a Look, she walks briskly out the front door, her features pinched and face bright red by the time she reaches it. Kaito trails along behind her, still in his school shoes.

   With the weather as it is, the courtyard is full to bursting with groups of girls in their sailor uniforms, boys with no socks on and their shirtsleeves rolled up, a few kids kitted out for other schools, chatting with their friends from over the wall. Aoko ducks and dodges through the crowd, and Kaito does the same without a problem. "I could go for you, if you tell me what you need. Meet you in the girl's locker room?" he offers, cheekily, only to be met with stony silence. Not even a stern, _how would you get into the girl's locker room?!_. Is this even Aoko at all? "Hey," he tries to stop her, but she ignores him, arms still covering her chest, shoulders hunched. "Aoko, why are you _walking_  like that?"

   She rounds on him just as they reach the middle of the courtyard. Screams, "It's not a period emergency!" Then, before he can say anything, adds, equally hysterically, "Shut up!"

   Stunned, Kaito does. Everyone in the courtyard turns to stare openly at the girl in the winter coat. Then, the majority of them seem to recognise Aoko, turn their gazes swiftly away, and go back to whatever they were doing before.

   "Kuroba-kun!" someone jeers from the left. "Put some shoes on!"

   Looking like she might hurl anyone who gets in her way into traffic, Aoko turns on her heel and storms right out the gate.

 

   Kaito lets her go. He knows better than to test a fuming Aoko, but he also knows better than to leave an _anxious_ Aoko alone to worry herself sick. He can already feel his stomach roiling, and not from the stares this time.

   So he takes the scenic route. Back into the school, change of shoes, out the back window of an empty teacher's office, over the fence, down a few back alleys, up a drainpipe, down a fire escape and through a crowd, he reaches the drugstore just as Aoko is hurrying inside. He'd make quite the spy, he thinks, if he really committed to it.

   He gives it a moment before slipping through the front door as well.

   She doesn't notice a thing. Kaito observes, silently, from behind a rack of hair accessories as Aoko completely bypasses the feminine hygiene products and makes a beeline for the cosmetics section instead.

   Kaito knows full and well that Aoko has never worn make-up in her life. But that doesn't stop her from grabbing a tube of concealer, a pump-bottle of foundation, a tub of powder, and another tube of something Kaito can't identify, selecting them all like she's done it a million times. She fumbles over her change at the register, and then leaves with all of her purchases in a little plastic bag.

   He counts to five, and then leaves behind her.

   

   She doesn't go straight back to school. Instead, she wanders the other way until she finds a short wall to sit on, forcing Kaito to crouch awkwardly behind a phone box. He watches her tipping out her products into her lap, selecting the small tube he didn't recognise and squeezing clear, tacky fluid out onto her right wrist.

    _No..._

She's too busy concentrating, this is his _chance_. Kaito stands up straight and walks over with his hands in his pockets, nonchalant and completely inconspicuous, just as the concealer comes out. He comes to a halt beside her, one of her fingers smeared with make-up, poised to apply it just over the vein.

   There, etched into her skin, are the same two words he's been hiding from her all this time, covered by an old layer of foundation but still darker than he's seen them in years.

 

   They don't go back to class, but it's not until Kaito swears on his life and the life of his mother that he'll be able to forge their attendance on the register that Aoko finally agrees to step into a nearby cafe.

   Kaito orders a currant bun and eats it with his watch off. Exposing that sliver of skin feels like nudity, but of course, nobody but Aoko actually cares to look at it. In turn, she lets him inspect the contents of her drugstore bag, and rub his fingertips in circles over the powdery surface of Hakuba's name.

   "It covers everything," Aoko says, referring to the make-up clinking together as Kaito puts it back in the bag again. "They say it can change your whole face." He wishes she didn't sound so hopeful. "But I've never worn it on my face."

   The last to go is the concealer. Thoughtfully, he holds it up to the light. "Can I borrow some?" he asks.

   Aoko gives him an odd look, then smiles. "Okay."

 

   "Sa-ga," Aoko muses, two weeks later, lying upside-down on her bed with her head hanging over the edge, "Sa-gu..."

   "Or Tan," Kaito finishes for her, from his place on the floor. He's lying down also, looking up at the ceiling. Over the last few hours, Hakuba's name has been growing fainter again. It fills him with a sadness he can't describe, and he can feel the same thing radiating from Aoko whenever she glances at her wrist to check Hakuba's progress in getting steadily farther and farther away from them. "None of those are names."

   "It must be a different reading." She sighs. "I guess he has creative parents."

   A sidelong glance goes ignored. Kaito clears his throat. " _She_ , you mean."

   "He," she responds matter-of-factly. "It's a boy's name." 

   Kaito sits up, annoyed. "You don't even know how to read it!"

   "Well, I'm not gay!"

   "Well, neither am I!"

   "Well, maybe I don't want to share you with another woman!"

   "Well, maybe that's too bad!"

   She rights herself to glare at him, and he glares back, unblinking. For the past week, Kaito has been steadily growing more and more okay with the idea of having two girls on his arm (or arms, if you wanted to be literal about it). Whoever Hakuba is, there's no way she'd compare to Aoko, but that hasn't stopped him from imagining someone beautiful, and friendly, and funny, and wondering when she'll show up in both of their lives.

   It didn't even occur to him that Aoko would be imagining someone _very_ different.

   He lets the stand-off drop, shrugging and lying back down again. Aoko glares a moment longer, and then resumes her old position as well.

   A boy Hakuba. The idea is jarring, but not entirely repulsive. Kaito has never been overly friendly with other boys - they're so much harder to win over, without the advantage of flirting and flowers. He isn't even sure what he'd do, if he really did have one tied to him by that delicate red string of fate.

  

   Hakuba's name grows in clear again for almost the entirety of the next summer.

   It's the same summer Jii-chan starts dressing as the famous-infamous Kaitou Kid, and then everything gets turned rather upside-down in Kaito's life, sometimes literally.

   He tries to tune it out, when Aoko rants about how much she hates _that dirty thief_ , _that lowlife criminal_  who steals her father away from her- hopes that if she feels the little stabs of hurt, she can confuse them for her own.

 

   If it really is up to fate, then forget the organization seeking Pandora - fate is the new number one enemy of the Kaitou Kid.

   Fate that gave him one too many soulmates, fate that brought him to the clocktower, fate that killed his father so that he might take up the mantle of the Kid and eventually end up here, mid-air in a sea of lasers, clinging to a rope while some idiot detective in a deerstalker lectures him. Because fate is just that unkind.

   And then the gas cannister goes off and the card gun comes out, and there's a swell of fear in not quite the usual place in Kaito's chest, fear that shouldn't be there with the barrel pointing in the other direction.

   Fear that he takes advantage of, with pink smoke filling the room. Is it really holding someone at gunpoint, if the worst damage the gun can do is a papercut?

   Kaito narrows his eyes, and tightens his finger on the trigger. "All I want to know," he says, measured and careful, "Is how to pronounce your first name."

 

   Later, when the sweet smell of the soporific gas is fading, and the Hakuba-impostor has escaped, and the real Hakuba has recovered well enough to join the rest of the Task Force in milling about on the museum floor, marking himself as a newcomer with a scowl among the sea of upbeat, cheerful chatter with only a mild undertone of disappointment - later, when Kuroba Kaito is making the rounds of that same crowd with only a few remarks of "oh, when did you get here?" thrown his way, is when they manage to bump into each other, Kaito's eyes on his phone, Hakuba's mind clearly elsewhere.

  "Sorry," Kaito says, automatically. And then he looks up and sees who it is, and wishes he had said anything else.

   Fate isn't even being subtle about it, any more.

   "It's quite alright," Hakuba says. He looks around a little, possibly scouting the room for anyone else his own age - and then, when he finds nobody but Kaito, turns back to him and adds, conversationally, "Were you at the heist?"

   Kaito has to make a solid effort not to stare. In all the chaos, it was hard to overlook who Hakuba actually _was_ , but now... here he is. A boy Hakuba. "Nakamori-keibu invited me here as a consultant. I'm friends with his daughter." _And she called me twenty-eight times tonight, what the hell,_ he doesn't add, instead giving an apologetic, "I think this might be an emergency," and selecting her first voicemail, raising the phone to listen.

   For some reason, Hakuba doesn't leave. He only puts his hands in his pockets and stares, politely, at a nearby pillar.

   Aoko's voice blares from the speaker, and Kaito has no choice but to wince and hold it a little away from his ear. "It's Saguru! _Sa-gu-ru_ , he's a boy! Hakuba Saguru is a boy, _what did I tell you_ , he's a boy and he's on TV with my dad _and he is so tall_ -" and then Kaito glances up and, judging by the volume of Aoko's yelling and the look of curiousity that's slowly beginning to dawn on Hakuba's face, ascertains that he just heard everything, and swiftly hangs up.

   Hakuba manages to gather his expression into something more along the lines of amusement by the time Kaito has slipped his phone back into his pocket and politely coughed, just to clarify that that was _not_ supposed to happen.

   "Well." Hakuba stands up a little straighter, not breaking eye contact. There's a smile pulling at the corner of his mouth, like he's not quite sure if it's appropriate yet. "I see there's been some confusion about my..." He raises one eyebrow, then his gaze wanders down to Kaito's pocket, where the phone is. "...gender?"

   Kaito nods, speechless for what may be the actual first time in his life. Then, a beat later, "You knew the moment you met Nakamori-keibu, didn't you?"

   Hakuba looks mildly surprised for all of about half a second, and then that smug smile finally makes its appearance. "On the contrary," he says, lowly, "The chances of a _Nakamori_ chasing a _Kaitou_  Kid were far too slim for me to pass up investigating." Kaito goes tense all over, just barely resists the urge to tackle Hakuba to the floor and slap a hand over his mouth to shut him up, magic act be damned. And Hakuba just keeps looking at him like he knows exactly what's going through his head. "But you could say that I _really_  knew the moment you entered this building, Kuroba-kun."

    _...And now the mark is a bona-fide Kaitou Kid GPS-tracker_ , his mind finishes, bitterly, for him. _Evidence._

   Not exactly the most brilliant detective work, since having a supernatural element on your forearm pointing the way is clearly an unfair advantage, but evidence nonetheless.

   "It had to be you, didn't it?" Kaito remarks coolly, after a silence that is far too long for his liking.

   Hakuba doesn't look anywhere near as smug, his now-cordial smile frozen on his face when he says, "It must be fate." Says it in an even tone, so calmly that Kaito feels silly for pre-emptively flinching the moment he opened his mouth. In a room swarming with police officers, all he has to do is say the word. His name leaves Hakuba's lips, and there's no amount of sleep gas that will allow him to slip away from the consequences. 

   And no amount of schooling his facial expression will stop Hakuba feeling traces of the fear that's now pulsing within him, the same way that he can feel a fizzing excitement in the detective, the kind that could be attributed to the adrenaline from the heist, if it was fading, but it isn't. _Now_ , Kaito thinks,  _Any second..._

   Is there any point in running, this time?

   "And what do you plan to do about it?" He doesn't allow himself to look defensive. To everyone else, this has to look like they're talking about school or baseball or something equally boring. If Kaito had wine, he would be swirling the glass.

   "Under the special circumstances? Nothing. So long as you continue to show your face at heists, we shouldn't have a problem." There's no way Hakuba isn't feeling the burst of relief that rips through Kaito in that moment, even if he doesn't show it. He just pulls a small notebook from his pocket, and flips it open. "And then, when all of this is over," he suggests, airily, already writing something down, "Perhaps I could join you and Nakamori-san for a cup of coffee?"

        He tears the page out and hands it over, wordlessly, before walking away with only a nod goodbye. Kaito takes a peek - ten digits in an orderly row - before tucking it into the cuff of his shirt and making off in the opposite direction, fishing his phone from his pocket. When he's out in the fresh air, able to wander freely among scattered officers and police tape, he dials Aoko's number, not bothering to hide his grin anymore.

   Coffee with a thief. Hakuba must really be out of his mind. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i made a few minor edits to the first part and decided to tack an epilogue onto the end, which will be up soon, despite my original determination to keep this as a two-shot. oops?


	3. Epilogue

   It seems like a flawless plan.

   They will live their lives for as long as it takes. Kuroba Kaito will come to heists, and moments after he leaves for the bathroom or some fresh air or to locate Aoko in the crowd of fans, the smoke bombs will go off and the confetti will fall and the Kaitou Kid will appear from thin air. Hakuba will chase him, will trap him in handcuffs, will be caught off guard with anaesthetic gas and wake with both of his own wrists in said handcuffs and Kid nowhere to be seen; rinse and repeat until Kid finds what he's looking for and the heists stop and Kaito and Hakuba can drop the rivalry and just be _people_ to one another.

   When Aoko gets her father back, and the fan clubs begin to disperse; when Kaito stops taking newspaper clippings from heist reports and relocates his stash of them to closed drawer in the room behind the painting, to be forgotten about; when Hakuba gets sleep on school nights and settles back into cases where the victim isn't made of stone and the perpetrator only has one face; when the strings of fate aren't pulled so tensely and tightly, they can find each other again, the way they were supposed to.

 

   The day after the Bronze Statue heist, Aoko shows up at Kaito's front door at seven in the morning, bouncing on the balls of her feet. She's dressed for school, and her hands are full with two styrofoam cups. There's a paper bag under her arm, damp with spots of grease.

   "Breakfast?" she chirps, holding one of the cups up in invitation when Kaito opens the door half-dressed, bleary-eyed, and with his hair even messier than usual. He steps aside to let her in, and wordlessly takes the cup she gives him before following her through to the kitchen. 

   He's barely slept, and a close look at her face while she sets out the contents of the bag on two plates, (moving about his kitchen like she owns the place, which is fair enough, really, considering she's probably spent as much as time in it as he has) reveals the same of her - the space beneath her eyes is slightly but unnaturally pale.

   She hands him a plated sugared donut, which makes him think _police_ , which makes him think _Hakuba_. He wonders if Aoko had the same train of thought.

   "So, Kaito," Aoko says, settling herself into one of the chairs at the breakfast bar and clasping her hands in front of her like this is all very serious business. Kaito continues to stand, looking blearily down at the donut as though it will have this conversation for him. He can tell she's struggling to keep a straight face. "Tell me you got his number."

   "I got his number," Kaito says. "But."

   Aoko raises her eyebrows. "But?"

   He gives her a meaningful look. "But."

 

   Aoko is Not Talking To Him by the time they get to school that day. Kaito knows from experience that it's not because she's angry, but rather because she's trying to figure out whether she _should_  be angry. If she actually _was_  angry, she wouldn't have sat through the rest of breakfast with him in disappointed silence, or paced around his bedroom while he got ready for school and then walked there with him, equally silently.

   It wasn't like he had lied to her. Informing her that Hakuba is currently too busy with complications at work to devote this situation the attention it deserved - that wasn't a lie, even if he did neglect to mention that the 'work' is _him_ and the _complications_  are the fact that if Aoko finds out what Hakuba has learned, she'd probably explode and call the whole thing off and cry and try to have him arrested.

   "So the Kaitou Kid is ruining this," was all she'd said, very curtly, reaching into her pocket and taking out a stick of concealer. 

   And Kaito had had no choice but to reply, "As usual."

 

   He settles in at his desk and, waiting for the teacher, starts the school day as he always does - scouring websites on his phone for news of Kid. It's nowhere near as fun after a failed heist, even if he really _didn't_ want the stupid statue to begin with. But he got away unharmed, and Nakamori-keibu probably got a bonus for stopping him, so it's not that much of a loss, not really.

   Even when the teacher begins to talk, he isn't listening. It's been a long night, and not just the disappearing into thin air and jumping off a roof part. He tips his head back, closes his eyes. Pandora wasn't in the statue. It wasn't in the Blue Birthday or the Angel Crown or the Beaucoup de Soleil à Paris. _When all of this is over..._

   And then, at once, every female in the room seems to sort of... _inhale_. 


End file.
